So Many Snake Posts

It seems all the rage here at the beginning of spring. So many different posts on Facebook all about snakes. How many snakes do you see in the tree? Be on the lookout for snakes hiding in the bottom of strollers or hanging out in lawn furniture and the like. The trying to be all helpful, this is how you tell a venomous snake from a non-venomous snake which by the way includes looking at the shape of the head as well as the scales on the back of the snake. That is just giving too much time to snake identification. People are posting pictures of snakes asking what kind is it? And then you have a plethora of arguing comments ranging from cotton mouth to water snake. There are all the first hike of spring reports dealing with snakes on the trails or on rocks or whatever or wherever. It is too much. There is the video of the guy feeding white mice to the snakes that are housed in lab drawers. I can't even watch that. This past Sunday I couldn't even catch a break from snakes in Sunday School. Our lesson was on Moses lifting up the bronze snake in the wilderness and all that looked at it were healed from the snakes poisonous bites. I have also learned from all these snake chats that the correct term is venomous not poison and they go on to explain why knowing this matters. I think at this point I am still suffering from Post Traumatic Snake Disorder after seeing a king snake and a Florida black racer snake in the back yard last summer. Now all sticks and dried out mulch must be inspected at a distance because each and every thing could be a snake coming out of hibernation. Our temperatures are supposed to get down to 29 degrees on Sunday and Monday night, maybe that will make those snakes hightail it back to their hidey holes. I think that most of the snake posts are from the Facebook group Appalachian Americans and while they post funny, interesting and useful things, there is a lot of fascination with snakes...

Slowly but surely the cardinals are making a few guest appearances in the backyard. I love seeing that red flash of bird flying through our air space and the touchdown for landing on occasion. I saw my first baby woodpecker and the Carolina Chickadees are making their return as well. I know once the trees begin to really leaf out there will be more birds since the leaves give them coverage. Yesterday, I drove on one of my favorite roads around here and I was fortunate enough for the majority of time not having cars in front or behind me. So I could leisurely drive and take it all in. Off in the distance some trees bore the resemblance of autumn, the rust color against the dormant empty branches and some of the new growth but it is the red bud trees blooming out those red buds of color. The forsythia and bradford pear trees are flowering nicely too. In those hills and hollers nestled in those valleys were other bright flashes of red, these red flashes of barns. Not all barns around here are red. There are plenty white and washed out gray barns across the view. They are just as lovely. Of course you know in all that loveliness there are probably snakes hiding in the corn cribs and in the bales of hay. These barn snakes are probably rat and king snakes which are our friends as they eat mice, rats, chipmunks and poisonous snakes like copper heads.

I think my friend that lives out in the country south of us in Katy by about forty minutes has had the most adventures with snakes of anyone I have ever known. She has stories that you don't want to hear late at night cause you know then you get the twitches and you think that one of those detestable beings might be somewhere nearby lurking and watching your every move.

As it seems another post about snakes was on Facebook right before going to bed and like a not too smart person I read the comments. One lady wrote about finding a snake going under her refrigerator and she womaned up and got that thing out of the house and killed it. Snakey Poo was filled with eggs. She also wrote about one slithering across her feet one night in bed. That's when she told her husband if he didn't fix the hole where they were getting in she would burn down the house. She said he fixed it right away.

I'm sure on this brand new day there will be new snake posts and I am going to have to scroll right past them. I'd rather think of the flowers that are blooming and the trees leafing out.